Lake Wobegon Days
by Garrison Keillor

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Book Reviews of Lake Wobegon Days

Book Review: Dullsville USA
Summary: 2 Stars

Mr Keillor's book is set in the fictional small town of Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. It is not an easy book to categorise. It is certainly not a conventional novel, but rather consists of a spoof history of his fictional town, followed by a lengthy series of anecdotes and personal reminiscences set in and around it, organised either by theme or by the time of year when they take place. The author's intention seems to have been to give a realistic but humorous view of small-town life, avoiding the traps of portraying Lake Wobegon either as an earthly paradise or as a sink of depravity. Unfortunately, although he succeeds in avoiding these traps, he does not succeed in injecting much humour into his account of the town. The book has been described as "gently humorous": in this context, the adverb seems to be simply a euphemism for "not very". The fictional history of the town struck me as being particularly dull reading, lacking in either wit or satirical bite. (I have some sympathy with those readers who gave up reading the book in the first hundred pages or so). The remainder of the book improves somewhat, and there are some genuinely funny passages. (I enjoyed, for example, Mr Keillor's satire at the expense of the narrow, bigoted religious sect in which he grew up). These passages, unfortunately, are far between, and much of the intervening material is just padding. Besides the two stereotypes of small-town life quoted above, there is a third stereotypical view: that small towns are dull, boring places where nothing of any interest ever happens. This is a view that Mr Keillor has, perhaps inadvertently, perpetuated in this book.

Summary of Lake Wobegon Days

Humor Books

• Subjects > Humor & Entertainment > Humor
• Literature & Fiction > Comic
• Literary